God is Moving Here!
A “State of the Church” Message About What God is Doing at AWC and What We Hope to See in the Future.
Proverbs 16:3
May 18, 2008
Introduction
This won’t be like the messages I normally give.
As the message and sub-title indicate, this will be a “state of the church” message about what God is doing here at AWC and what we hope to see in the future.
Positive
Let me give you some really good news: we are up in every category that is measured for our church and even some that aren’t.
Attendance – We finished the church year averaging 48, which doesn’t sound like much, but it is an increase of 2 over last year.
We would actually be in the 70’s if everyone who identifies with this church in any sort of semi-regular fashion would all show up on a given Sunday. In fact it would be close to 80.
But part of the American culture right now is that weekly church attendance by Christians has fallen dramatically over the last few years.
That number doesn’t include the shut-ins or those away at college or anybody like that. That number is made up of those who come here on a semi-regular basis.
New families – 4 new families have made this their church home and there’s another that is starting to come occasionally.
Membership – 1 new official member, 3 more transferring their membership as soon as the paperwork gets done, and others have expressed interest in becoming members.
Salvation – three people that I know of have come to Christ through the ministries of this church.
And you know what’s really great about that? I had very little to do with that. It was you guys influencing others for Christ. I can’t tell you how excited I am about that!
Baptisms – we’ve baptized four people in believer’s baptism.
Giving – anticipated a $1250 deficit, but ended up in the black. We had parking lot repairs of over $9000 and our new piano at just under $10,000. The piano was purchased with bequest funds of Florence and Ray Hughes, but the parking lot repairs came right out of the general fund.
And just recently the church was made aware of the fact that we will be receiving a large gift from the estate of a long-time member who passed away a couple weeks ago.
Those are just the measurable, tangible things that I can show you with statistics and all that kind of thing.
Folks, I’m here to tell you – God is moving here.
Our primary purpose:
By now you’ve probably noticed that the front of the bulletins has changed a bit. Under the logo it used to say, “Real faith…in the Real God…for Real People…in the Real World.”
And we still believe that this is what God offers through Christ.
But lately, through much prayer, counsel, consulting, and sessions in which everyone involved in the ministries are the church were invited, we came to the conclusion that the primary purpose of this church should reflect the primary purpose of Jesus.
And that primary purpose was to restore relationships with God through His death and resurrection.
So if we want to be a church that actually reflects Christ accurately, then we needed to adopt His primary purpose as our own.
What is that purpose? Restoring relationships with God through Christ. And that’s what’s on the front of your bulletins.
This wasn’t something we just thought up over a board meeting while the sauerkraut was sitting in our stomachs.
The process of coming to this conclusion actually began about 3 years ago, when District Superintendent Isaac Smith asked us to be part of the Refocusing process.
This process has involved examination of the lives of myself and your leaders to see how God has shaped us for His service.
It also involved looking at the 120-year history of this church to see what God has done in the past and what has held it back from being the most effective for Christ and His kingdom.
Just those parts were long, and at times, painful, because it forced us to look at ourselves and the church and examine the hurt over the years.
But the main purpose of the refocusing process was to help this church learn what its primary purpose should be.
The purpose of Aberdeen Wesleyan Church is to restore relationships with God through Christ.
In my mind, the best way to do all that is to look at both the Greatest Commandments and the Great Commission.
The Greatest Commandment – to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. (Worship)
The second greatest commandment – to love our neighbor as ourselves. (Fellowship, Ministry)
In other words, as we become intentional about working on our relationship with God, it should overflow into our relationships with people.
Great Commission – to make disciples. (Evangelism, Discipleship)
These encompass the five purposes of the church as seen in the banners over here into one unifying purpose tying them all together.
Let me say again that coming to this conclusion was painstaking, and we had to battle through misconceptions, misunderstandings, and differing ideas as to what we thought the primary purpose of Jesus was.
But those who were at these meetings will tell you that when we walked out of the meeting where we came to this conclusion, all of us were in complete unity regarding what we felt the primary purpose of the church should be.
That’s not to say we’ll always agree on how to bring that about, but if can have unity on this essential issue, then we can move on to greater effectiveness for the Kingdom of God and for His glory in this area.
That unity around the purpose is an indication that God is moving here.
Negative
Now let me visit with you very quickly about the fact that not everything is roses. Becoming more effective for the Kingdom brings with it some challenges.
I am not perfect, as all of you know by now. And in this refocusing process, I’ve been forced to learn some things about myself that need work.
I’ve let some of you down from time to time. And I sincerely ask for your forgiveness for those times.
Unfortunately, pastors are not gifted with perfection, and I am no exception. And so I would ask for your prayers that God would continue to mold me to be more like Jesus to you.
We’re a church filled with imperfect people, and no matter what your mama thinks about you, you’re not perfect, either.
So from time to time we run up against the fact that imperfect humans are what make up the Church of Jesus Christ around the world.
And because we’re not perfect, we’re going to make mistakes and we’re going to blow it from time to time as we try to implement that vision.
But I honestly believe that as we attempt to bring about this purpose into the life of the church, God will bless our efforts.
We need input from you. Positive input that offers ideas and insight. Input that shows us your concerns as we move forward but that offers solutions to those concerns.
And you also need to know something else: when the people of God get excited and active for the things of God, then the enemy of God (and us) begins to fight mightily.
Usually he fights by trying to bring division among the Body by sowing dissension through such things as gossip, back-biting, and grumbling.
I’m not talking about honest disagreement about things like how to implement our vision. That’s a good thing – as long as it’s done in a way that builds up the Church and its people instead of tearing them down.
I’m talking about the fact that oftentimes when someone has an issue with someone, they won’t talk to that person, but instead talk about that person, and Jesus calls that a sin.
So I would ask that you keep an eye out for the wiles of the enemy to try and sow discord among us. He will try, because God is moving here.
Positive
I mentioned earlier some of the gains we’ve made in terms of things like attendance, baptisms, and such.
But I also want to mention that I think we’ve also made gains in the area of overall attitudes here at the church.
This has actually been happening over a number of years, but I believe things are getting better all the time.
People are smiling more. People are hanging out after the service to just yak more, especially with new guests and new folks.
There is an ever-warming attitude of welcoming guests when they arrive. It’s great to see how more and more of you are going out of your way to meet our guests and make them feel welcome.
I think our worship is improving. And I mean in terms of people’s hearts being turned to God and focusing on Him during our time together. I think God is pleased with our worship lately.
The new prayer group meeting on Wednesday nights is a beautiful thing. We pray for this church and for missionaries around the world, we pray for this city and this area.
Can you see why these things are causing me to lose sleep at night?
Folks, God is moving here.
Challenge
Proverbs 16:3 –
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.
Obviously these plans have to be within the will of God, right?
It’s not like you can say, “Okay Lord, we’re going to rob this bank and we’re going to commit this robbery to You so that we’ll succeed…”
We believe that we know the direction God wants us to God. We don’t know everything it involves yet, and we’ll never be at a place where we can just sit back and relax, thinking we’ve got it all figured out.
But we believe that by committing ourselves to fulfilling our primary purpose, God will bring success.
So let me challenge each one of you to a few actions:
1. Adopt the primary purpose of AWC as your own.
Make it your personal goal to help as many people as possible find restoration with God through Jesus, which can lead to healing in other relationships.
2. Pray for AWC and its leadership.
* That we be intentional about seeking to help people find restoration with God and others.
* That we would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as we really try to implement this purpose.
* That God would put a hedge of protection around the Church, its people, and its leadership.
* That God would glorify Himself in our efforts.
3. Get involved in what we’re doing to make this primary purpose a reality at AWC.
4. Commit to protecting the unity of the Church by refusing to take part in those things that the enemy would use to bring division among us.
Closing
I would like us to close our service a bit differently today.
Lowell and the ladies are going to come up and lead us in our closing chorus.
And I’m wondering if during that final verse, you would like to come up to the altar and pray for the church, then we’ll dismiss after that prayer.
